After the Lionman General was killed, a faint translucent door appeared soon afterwards. It was a teleportation door that would send them back to the entrance of the catacomb.
After everyone went through, they appeared at the entrance, surprising the rankers present. They were all curious about the party responsible for clearing the dungeon. Normally, the Lionmen Catacombs could only be clearing with at least a party of ten, where there would be at least three tanks to take the blows of the Lionman General, three warriors and at least two mages to overpower it with destructive skills. At least two members should be E-Rank.
However, everyone was astounded by the six-man party that only had a single E-Ranker. How were they able to clear the catacomb?
Of course, Adele and the rest did not bother with the crowd and quickly left the place. Clearing the Catacomb did not mean that the creatures within were gone for good. What happens is that the Catacomb would have an impenetrable barrier erected around it for an hour and after that creatures within would respawn.
This mystical effect of the Catacombs was the key reason why humanity was unable to fully eradicate the catacombs from their existence!
Astartes and the party boarded a flying car and they went to their lodging. The Catacomb raid had lasted an entire day and everyone was tired. Yet their eyes shone brightly as they was overjoyed at the spoils. This was the greatest rewards they have obtained as a party since they embarked on their Catacomb raids.
The obtained over 50 attribute cores, a piece of F-Ranked equipment [Lion Cloak] and a F-Ranked skill [Blade Whirlwind] from the Lionman General alone! The other cores they obtained along the way totally up to 80. They were also quite lucky to have even obtained the Catacomb Lord's skill which was definitely a lot more powerful than normal E-Ranked skills!
"This should bring us quite a good fortune!" Adele grinned. She patted Astartes' shoulder and said, "You deserve more of the spoils!"
Despite Astartes' resistance, the other members of the party all agreed with Adele. They might have been gravely injured or even dead today if not for Astartes' presence today. Astartes did not dare to be too humble as that would be demeaning. He was given forty percent of the spoils alone but no one felt envious and instead believed he deserved it.
Before everyone split up, Adele gave her last instructions. "Let us take the day off tomorrow. Use that time to recover your strength and improve your powers. We shall once again clear the Lionmen Catacombs the day after tomorrow. After that, we will turn our sights to the [Reptilian Lair] Catacomb by the end of the week."
"Roger that, Captain Ink Sword!" they replied and bid their farewells.
Only Astartes and Adele remained in the room. She said to him, "What are you next steps?"
"I need to keep getting stronger. So I plan to obtain more skills and get much better in battle." Astartes responded.
"You already did great, Astartes. Your displayed immense power uncharacteristic of your level. Your inherent skill must be amazing." she smiled.
Astartes was not surprised that Adele was able to figure out that he had an inherent skill, but he did not say anything else.
"I do not care what skill you have or why you are so strong. I am not even the slightest bit envious. Everyone has their own fate after all. But you saved us out there, and now my party members can go home to their families, something that is rare these days," she sighed.
"Have you no family, Adele?"
She shook her head. "All dead. Just like you. My only close friend is the nurse. Do you remember the nurse who took care of you some days ago?"
Astartes nodded while saying, "She was really cute."
Adele could not help but burst laughing when she saw him make a serious face while saying that. They went on to talk about other matters. After some time had passed, Astartes decided to leave.
"You can stay at my place if you do not have any place to go," Adele offered. However, August politely declined and decided to find a place on his own.
Astartes exchanged some 20 attribute cores for $50,000 credits from Adele and found a lodging not far from the Lionmen Catacombs. Within his room, he outlined his plan for the next 48 hours.
His proficiency of the [Icicle Blast] skill was increasing rapidly but he had to increase his mastery to complete level. Next, he had to increase his attributes as quickly as possible. Lastly, he needed to find another spell for his second Infinite Cast slot. The [Icicle Blast] already did wonders for him and he was very excited to be able to use another skill infinitely.
For several hours he kept casting the [Icicle Blast] skill but not shooting it out and simply learning how to control them independently. When the [Icicle Blast] skill lost its power, he simply cast it again, and continued practicing. At the same time he absorbed the cores he had on him one after the other.
Casting [Icicle Blast]. Absorbing cores. He kept doing this over and over again, deep into the night before he ran out of cores to absorb. Also he was beginning to feel an incredible mental exhaustion after casting the [Icicle Blast] skill non-stop. He had lost count now of the number of times he did it.
However he smiled with satisfaction at the results of his hard work.
"Status" Astartes commanded.
NAME: ASTARTES (HUMAN)
OCCUPATION: RANKER (CLASS F)
STRENGTH: 10
AGILITY: 10
VITALITY: 10
SPIRIT: 12
SKILLS: Icicle Blast (F)(50)
INHERENT SKILL: INFINITE CASTER (Two Slots Available)
Infinite Cast Slot 1: Icicle Blast
Infinite Cast Slot 2: None
After exchanging 20 cores with credits with Adele, he was left with 32 cores out of the 52 he had obtained. With that, he was able to increase his strength, vitality and agility by 10 points each, while his spirit attribute increased by 2 points.
Moreover, he had also managed to push his proficiency in [Icicle Blast] to a point away from the Expert level!
Astartes was excited, yet was too tired now to digest his gains. He immediately fell asleep and woke up hours later.
He rose up to check the time on the clock and it was 8am.
"Wow...despite how exhausted I was, I slept for only seven hours and I feel so recharged. Amazing."
Astartes could immediately feel the changes in his body just from the sleep alone!
He felt his grip become firmer and his muscles more robust and larger. He also felt his eyesight improve and his coordination and movement. If this was how he felt, then how much stronger would he become when he became an E-Rank or A-Rank?
Rankers of this world were classified into ranks F to A with the F-Rank being the lowest rank. However, there were rumours of a legendary S-Ranker in this world. Astartes was very excited at the thought of reaching such heights in the future.
He quickly went to a small courtyard underground which served as a training room. Pay 28,000 credits for this place was not easy but he had to admit that this lodging suited his needs.
He practiced his [Icicle Blast] once more, controlling each one independently, forming dangerous attack patterns. He continued doing this for several minutes until the proficiency stat on the skill increased to 51, reaching expert level!
This moment that happened, a wonderful transformation occurred. The icicles created from the [Icicle Blast] skill increased to ten in number. Not instead of looking like thin shards of ice, they were now more like longswords without a hilt. Apart from that, the [Icicle Blast] skill felt more powerful, and a cold air permeated around it.
Astartes was delighted with this development. But he did not continue practicing for too long. After testing other ideas, he immediately ate a large breakfast and got dressed and headed out to the Rankers Association building. He wanted to check out the skills for sale!
After getting inside, and making several enquiries, he went to the place that had skills on display.
The sight of dazzling E-Rank and D-Rank skills left him overwhelmed. But he could not afford those skills right now. Even the cheapest E-Rank skill cost 120,000 credits.
He was just too poor!
His focus therefore remained on the F-Rank skills on display.
SHIELD CHARGE
BRUTE STRENGTH
AGILITY BOOST
GREAT VITALITY
SPIRIT BOOST
DARKNESS HAND
ICICLE BLAST
PIERCING SPLITTER
GREATER EARTH BARRIER
LESSER HEAL
Astartes stared carefully at the skills before him before falling into deep thought.
He only had two Infinite Cast slots so he had to be careful with the skills he was going to use. He could only choose a skill for a last slot. Earlier on, he tried to remove the [Icicle Blast] skill from the Infinite Cast slot but was unable to.
What this meant was that once a skill was placed into the slot the action was permanent.
After some thought, he eliminated [Shield Charge], [Brute Strength], [Great Vitality], [Spirit Boost], [Icicle Blast] and [Piercing Splitter]. Shield Charge, Brute Strength, Great Vitality were unsuitable to him currently since he did not use weapons and did not fight like a tank or berserker. At this current moment his fighting style was that of a mage. With his ability to cast a skill infinitely, he was doing very well as a long ranged fighter.
Astartes was not convinced on changing this approach quite yet. He eliminated Icicle Blast for obvious reasons, of course. He did not need Spirit Boost since he could cast his skill infinitely.
This meant that he was left with [Agility Boost], [Lesser Heal], [Darkness Hand], and [Greater Earth Barrier].
Now which should he choose?